What if I told you that there were three (very simple) things you could start doing today that would make you a happier person?

Ex-Google engineer turned mindfulness expert, thought leader, author and philanthropist, Chade-Meng Tan, discovered there really are a couple of things every one of us can start doing each day that will bring joy into our lives, and as a result, make us happier. Meng, as he likes to be called, meditates for hours each day, which the majority of us cannot do… but thankfully, he offers the world the practical application of his education, practice and teaching.

I heard Meng speak on a few podcasts, which I highly recommend if you have the time to check them out: 10% Happier and Note to Self.

I began doing these things as soon as he suggested, because, well, who wouldn’t want to bring more joy, compassion and loving kindness into their daily lives? It works. Meng offers that in order to achieve the depth of cultivation of one’s mind, one must practice like anything else; however, if you have 15 seconds to spare right now, you can improve your outlook, your state of being, and your life.

So here they are, your keys to joy:

1. Bring attention to your breath.

Sounds simple, right? For some people it is, and for others who find it difficult to sit and be present, this can be massive undertaking. Meng says, give yourself 15 seconds for this exercise, 5 seconds per breath.

First breath – Just bring attention to it, be aware of the breath in, and the breath out.

Second breath – Do the same, but this time relax your body, whatever that means for you.

Third breath – Now smile, while you breathe in and out with your body relaxed.

Now, try it. That smile should have brought a subtle sense of joy.

2. Wish happiness to others.

This is the practice of raising the thought to your conscious mind when you see someone of wishing them to be happy. You can do this for people who walk by you on the street, or you can bring the thought of someone in your life and just think to yourself as you picture them, “I wish them happiness”.

You’ll notice that as you do this, being the giver of compassionate loving kindness to others makes you feel this loving kindness yourself.

3. Raise your awareness of the tiny slices of joy already present in your life.

How often do we go our entire day, caught up in our routines and responsibilities, that we forget to appreciate the little things? Too often, is the answer I was looking for.

Our world is filled with what Meng calls “tiny slices of joy”–from taking the first sip of coffee in the morning, the feeling of the hot water from the shower hitting you, laying down in bed and feeling your head sink into the pillow–these wonderful, fleeting moments that we don’t take the time to acknowledge. His belief is that if we allowed ourselves to be present in these moments, we could experience this joy all day long.

Practicing these three simple things each day, experiencing joy and allowing yourself to be present in the moment will inevitably improve your well-being. On why the practice of mindfulness works, Meng says:

To worry you need to be in the future, to regret you need to be in the past. So if you take one breath of being in the present, then for that one breath you are free – you are free from worrying and regret.

And we agree.

***

Chade-Meng Tan (Meng) is a Google pioneer, award-winning engineer, international bestselling author, thought leader and philanthropist. He is Chairman of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, and Co-chair of One Billion Acts of Peace, which has been nominated eight times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

I think all along we should have been singing love songs to them, because the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection. –Johann Hari

In Johann Hari’s landmark TED Talk in June 2015, titled “Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong”, he explains the psychology behind addiction and how the criminalization of and stigma of the addicted person actually produce the opposite of the intended outcome. Saying “drugs are bad” and that they are addictive does nothing to address the issue of why people begin using drugs in the first place, such as to self-medicate or numb the unpleasant feelings brought on by past trauma, as we wrote about in an earlier blog. Hari says, essentially and quite simply, everything we’ve been doing to get people to stop using drugs has been wrong! And by the way, he didn’t arrive at this conclusion by chance or do it on his own; in fact, he had quite a bit of help from friends, scientists and the country of Portugal.

Hari first began to delve into this topic the way many of us have: because our lives have been touched by addiction, either we have experienced an addiction ourselves or someone close to us has. The fascinating thing about addiction is that the common societal attitude toward addiction is largely based on decades old research that has since been debunked, and yet, we continue to think that these two things are the key: 1. Drugs are addictive, and 2. People will stop using drugs if we punish them. The research, including that of Dr. Alexander referenced by Hari, shows that these two points are inherently wrong. Dr. Alexander’s famous “Rat Park” study tells us something different about addiction. Here is an excerpt from Hari’s TED Talk:

You get a rat and you put it in a cage, and you give it two water bottles: One is just water, and the other is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drug water and almost always kill itself quite quickly. So there you go, right? That’s how we think it works.

In the ’70s, Professor Alexander comes along and he looks at this experiment and he noticed something. He said ah, we’re putting the rat in an empty cage. It’s got nothing to do except use these drugs. Let’s try something different. So Professor Alexander built a cage that he called “Rat Park,” which is basically heaven for rats. They’ve got loads of cheese, they’ve got loads of colored balls, they’ve got loads of tunnels. Crucially, they’ve got loads of friends. They can have loads of sex.

And they’ve got both the water bottles, the normal water and the drugged water. But here’s the fascinating thing: In Rat Park, they don’t like the drug water. They almost never use it. None of them ever use it compulsively. None of them ever overdose. You go from almost 100 percent overdose when they’re isolated to zero percent overdose when they have happy and connected lives.

Hari isn’t saying that the environment is necessarily to blame, either, but rather that connecting with a drug addicted person is far more effective than punishing them, and maybe it is the cage. Hari questioned the relationship between these rats and their park, and thought, maybe it’s only with rats. But then he considers what happened with human beings, young American service men in the Vietnam War, over forty years ago.

“In Vietnam, 20 percent of all American troops were using loads of heroin, and if you look at the news reports from the time, they were really worried, because they thought, my God, we’re going to have hundreds of thousands of junkies on the streets of the United States when the war ends; it made total sense”. The Archive of General Psychiatry followed these soldiers home and conducted a detailed study, and what actually happened to these soldiers shocked scientists and doctors who studied addiction. Hari goes on, “It turns out they didn’t go to rehab. They didn’t go into withdrawal. Ninety-five percent of them just stopped. Now, if you believe the story about chemical hooks, that makes absolutely no sense, but Professor Alexander began to think there might be a different story about addiction. He said, what if addiction isn’t about your chemical hooks? What if addiction is about your cage? What if addiction is an adaptation to your environment?”

We’ve seen time and time again in countries with harsh drug policy and limited views of addiction, including the United States, shaming and criminalizing drug use—throwing addicts into the criminal justice system—does nothing positive for the addicted individual. When a heroin addict is arrested for possession and spends time in jail, she comes out with a record, thereby making it even more difficult for her to get a job and secure housing, further limiting her connections, isolating and traumatizing her, and creating a void that can seemingly only be filled with substance use. So what if, instead of beating people down, we built them up? What if we loved them unconditionally, and take all the money we spend on cutting addicts off, on disconnecting them, and spend it on reconnecting them with society? That’s what Portugal’s national drug coordinator, Dr. João Goulão, asked himself.

In the year 2000, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in the world, with one percent of its population addicted to heroin—an incredibly mind-blowing statistic. They had tried the American way of waging war on drugs, which is essentially a war on drug addicts, and found that what we know to be true here was true for them: it does not work, and it was getting worse every year. Fifteen years ago, Dr. João Goulão and a panel of experts sat together to address the problem, and considered all the research, and the country of Portugal did something monumental, something daring and seemingly crazy: they decriminalized ALL drugs. With their drug problem reaching unmatched heights at that point, Portugal’s decision had the whole world watching.

We know what happened, or didn’t happen rather: More people did not start using drugs. More people didn’t die from drug overdoses. What everyone thought was going to happen, didn’t happen. Drug use went down. WAY DOWN. Portugal went from having one of the worst heroin epidemics in the world in 2000 to being among the countries with the lowest prevalence of use for most substances in 2012. These were the results:
Fewer people arrested and incarcerated for drugs.The number of people arrested and sent to criminal courts for drug offenses declined by more than 60 percent since decriminalization.

The percentage of people in Portugal’s prison system for drug law violations also decreased dramatically, from 44 percent in 1999 to 24 percent in 2013.

More people receiving drug treatment.Between 1998 and 2011, the number of people in drug treatment increased by more than 60 percent (from approximately 23,600 to roughly 38,000). Treatment is voluntary – making Portugal’s high rates of uptake even more impressive.

Over 70 percent of those who seek treatment receive opioid-substitution therapy, the most effective treatment for opioid dependence

Reduced drug-induced deaths.The number of deaths caused by drug overdose decreased from about 80 in 2001 to just 16 in 2012.

Reduced social costs of drug misuse.A 2015 study found that, since the adoption of the new Portuguese national drugs strategy, which paved the way for decriminalization, the per capita social cost of drug misuse decreased by 18 percent

In 2013, Nuno Capaz of the Lisbon Dissuasion Commission said, “We came to the conclusion that the criminal system was not best suited to deal with this situation… The best option should be referring them to treatment… We do not force or coerce anyone. If they are willing to go by themselves, it’s because they actually want to, so the success rate is really high… We can surely say that decriminalization does not increase drug usage, and that decriminalization does not mean legalizing… It’s still illegal to use drugs in Portugal — it’s just not considered a crime. It’s possible to deal with drug users outside the criminal system.”

So why is it so hard for people to accept the outcomes of these studies? For one, government campaigns have ingrained anti-drug slogans in our brains since elementary school, so these findings are contrary to our belief system, characterized by Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign. Since the war on drugs began with President Nixon in the 70s, immortalized by the first lady in 80s, and continued by the first President Bush, we have been engaged in a war against people affected by drug addiction. Four decades of throwing people struggling with addiction into prison, stripping people of their coping mechanisms, and offering them nothing in return except a criminal history. Secondly, if the drugs and the individual aren’t to blame, then who is? It is our responsibility as a society to help those suffering from addiction; to create a paradise for them, lend our unconditional support and sing them songs of love.

With no end to the war on drugs in sight, there are still things we can do to shift the tide and create a culture of love and support for the drug addicted person:

Stop treating the addicted person as a criminal. More than half of us have been touched in some way by addiction, and many of us know someone who is struggling with addiction today. Shifting the way we look at and treat people with addiction is the first step. They are not criminals or deviants. They are not even addicts. They are human beings—our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, neighbors, peers, colleagues and co-workers—who are coping with an illness.

Support people in their addiction. Whether you’re a treatment provider, family member, employer or advocate, we all have a role in ensuring people who need treatment get the care they need and deserve. As we learn from Portugal, forcing people into treatment often results in high cost and poor outcomes. When someone is ready for treatment, is willing and engaged in their recovery, we see the greatest outcomes and people can begin their life free of substances.

Connect with people. Showing someone struggling with addiction that you aren’t going to turn your back on them and that you care about their recovery is the most important thing you can do. Instinctively, we want to let our loved ones “hit rock bottom” or show them how their addiction has affected us by shutting them out, but we know this does not help. Just like the rats in “Rat Park”, your love might be the thing that makes this person say maybe I don’t want the drug-laced water.

What Dr. Maté—a leader in addiction medicine and world-renowned author and speaker—is saying, is something we’ve long known to be true about trauma and addiction, and yet the field of addiction treatment still lags behind the research (links to 6 studies at bottom of page): addiction is usually a symptom of underlying trauma, or mental health issues that are the manifestation of trauma. Dr. Maté uses the word ‘pain’ to refer to trauma and other underlying issues, whether it’s past sexual or physical abuse, the pain of not being able to control one’s thoughts and emotions, loss and grief, physical pain or whatever is causing the unpleasant feelings.

In the United States, 61 percent of men and 51 percent of women report exposure to at least one lifetime traumatic event (SAMHSA).

Over two-thirds of people seeking treatment for some sort of addiction report one or more traumatic life events (Back et al., 2000).

Rates of witnessing serious injury or death of others and experiencing physical assault are two to three times higher in substance-using individuals than in the general population (Cottler et al., 2001; Kessler et al., 1995).

So what is trauma?

Trauma becomes increasingly difficult to define in succinct terms as one further investigates and uncovers the myriad definitions. The reason for this is the subjectivity involved in traumatic experiences, which lends itself to the definition that we think is the clearest, from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA):

Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening with lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.

“Experienced by an individual…” That is the key. Trauma isn’t an event, but how one experiences or perceives an event. This inherent subjectivity is why people can experience the same seemingly traumatic event, such as being in a car accident or growing up in a war-torn country, and come out of the experience with varying degrees of trauma or distress. Trauma can take all forms, from childhood experiences of divorce, abuse and neglect, bullying, and witnessing domestic violence to loss of a parent, loss of employment, a breakup or being involved in a volatile relationship. It can also result from growing up in an alcoholic or addicted home, or any other environment where individuals are taught to bury their feelings.

Roots through Recovery’s Clinical Director, Diana Kang, PsyD. says, “Trauma does not discriminate can can impact anyone. Everyone has a different perception of trauma, and how it is experienced in the body and mind varies greatly from person to person.” Unfortunately, many people experience trauma at some point in their life and don’t understand or acknowledge the trauma, so it goes untreated and manifests itself in fear and hopelessness, depression, anxiety, and in the most severe cases, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The Adverse Childhood Experiences study conducted by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC in the 90s developed a tool for measuring an individual’s exposure to events that could be experienced as traumatic, including abuse or neglect. Some examples of adverse childhood experiences include: physical and emotional abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, witnessing abuse of a parent or another child, substance misuse in the household, divorce of parents and the incarceration of a family member. Although as one reads through the list and these events seem all too common in households we know or our own, ACEs are strongly related to the development and prevalence of a wide range of health problems throughout life, including those associated with substance use and abuse.

ACEs are a good example of the types of complex issues that the prevention workforce often faces. The negative effects of ACEs are felt throughout the nation and can affect people of all backgrounds. Research has demonstrated a strong relationship between ACEs, substance use disorders, and behavioral problems. When children are exposed to chronic stressful events, their neurodevelopment can be disrupted. As a result, the child’s cognitive functioning or ability to cope with negative or disruptive emotions may be impaired.

How does trauma affect my body?

The human body is highly regulated by the stress response systems that have developed over time as a survival mechanism. Experts in the field of stress and trauma, including the brilliant Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, often cite the example of seeing a bear in the forest. In this case, the body instantly responds to the threat by flooding the body with adrenaline, opening up the airways and increasing our heart rate, stifling fear and allowing you to run or fight for survival. This is a great system to have in these situations of life or death. But, what happens when the bear is your dad who comes home drunk at night, or the bully in your school, or an entire block in your neighborhood? Having the body’s fight, flight or freeze response system activated too frequently is damaging to our physiological systems.

Trauma responses act on several systems that affect one’s physiology. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, what is currently known is that exposure to trauma leads to a cascade of biological changes and stress responses. These biological alterations are highly associated with PTSD, other mental illnesses, and substance use disorders. These include:

“As a clear example, early ACEs such as abuse, neglect, and other traumas affect brain development and increase a person’s vulnerability to encountering interpersonal violence as an adult and to developing chronic diseases and other physical illnesses, mental illnesses, substance-related disorders, and impairment in other life areas” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012).

Trauma also affects the brain.

A recent study published by Indian scientists reports new findings on how traumatic experiences affect the brain and how these effects later play out in memories. The study showed heightened electrical activity in the amygdala, located deep within the temporal lobe of the brain. “This region of the brain is known to play key roles in emotional reactions, memory and making decisions. Changes in the amygdala are linked to the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a mental condition that develops in a delayed fashion after a harrowing experience”. The study also found that a well-known protein involved in learning and memory, NMDA-R, is also involved in the process of creating these unpleasant memories and blocking them during a traumatic event reduced electrical activity at these synapses.

So then how are trauma and substance use connected?

The reasons behind this common co-occurrence of addiction and trauma are complex. For one thing, some people struggling to manage the effects of trauma in their lives may turn to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate. PTSD symptoms like agitation, hypersensitivity to loud noises or sudden movements, depression, social withdrawal and insomnia may seem more manageable through the use of sedating or stimulating drugs depending on the symptom. However, addiction soon becomes another problem in the trauma survivor’s life and before long, their coping mechanism no longer works, and causes far more pain to an already struggling person.

Many people who find themselves in a treatment program aren’t getting the help they need if the program only treats addiction, and does not consider trauma or co-occurring mental health issues (often called “dual diagnosis”) as the root cause of substance use. “Symptoms of someone suffering from trauma include flashbacks, nightmares, feeling like you are reliving the traumatic event, and avoidance of sights, sounds or feelings resembling the traumatic event (i.e. veterans avoiding fireworks during the 4th of July)”, offers Dr. Kang. She goes on to say, “Substance use is often one way to cope and numb out the impact of trauma. Sometimes it may be the only coping method one has. Therefore it is important to treat both the trauma and the addiction. When you address the addiction without looking at the trauma, you are not resolving the root of the addiction.”

With the impact stress responses and trauma have on the body, it’s not surprising that emotional and psychological pain often lead to an endless cycle of self-medicating, which leads to more pain, and inevitably more self-medicating, and so on. Often times, when left undiagnosed and untreated, people will self-medicate with alcohol, illicit drugs or misuse prescription drugs to placate the feelings of depression or anxiety or to numb the pain of the trauma. In these instances, the substances serve a purpose which is why to simply remove the substance, without understanding the individual need for it, is to ignore the cause and is not a long-term solution, much like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. “Over time, and often during adolescence, people with exposure to ACEs may adopt negative coping mechanisms, such as substance use or self-harm, social problems, as well as premature mortality. High ACE scores are associated with substance use disorders in adults:

Early initiation of alcohol use. Underage drinking prevention efforts may not be effective unless ACEs are addressed as a contributing factor. Underage drinking prevention programs may not work as intended unless they help youth recognize and cope with stressors of abuse, household dysfunction, and other adverse experiences. Learn more from a 2006 study on initial alcohol use among adolescents.

Am I at particular risk for trauma and/or addiction?

Other possible reasons addiction and trauma are often found together include the theory that a substance user’s lifestyle puts him/her in harm’s way more often than that of a non-addicted person. Unsavory acquaintances, dangerous neighborhoods, impaired driving, and other aspects commonly associated with drug and alcohol abuse may indeed predispose substance abusers to being traumatized by crime, accidents, violence and abuse. There may also be a genetic component linking people prone toward PTSD and those with addictive tendencies, although no definitive conclusion has been made by research so far.

Often times, clients are not consciously aware that they are using substances to cope with the symptoms of trauma. They may have no memory of a traumatic event or experience, and yet, the trauma surfaces in their body or subconsciously in their brain without them knowing, ands they escape with the use of drugs or alcohol. As Primary Therapist Lauren Emmel said on a recent podcast with Todd Zalkins, “[Trauma] can surface after eight months, four years, ten years. It’s in a part of the brain… that doesn’t know any time. So something that impacted us when we were eight, ten, twelve, can impact us when we’re 20, 30, 40 if left unprocessed.” Self-soothing and distraction are ways people use substances to help get through these challenging times, and in order to develop a lifestyle that does not rely on substances, one must identify new ways to cope with unpleasant feelings.

So what can I do to reduce trauma and its effect on me?

To prevent further harm and prevent relapse, it is up to treatment professionals to recognize the prevalence of trauma among individuals coping with addiction, routinely screen for trauma symptoms, and deliver the integrated, multidisciplinary treatment that has proven effective in treating co-occurring disorders. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offers a helpful manual for practitioners or anyone interested in learning more about trauma informed care in their Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) 57, Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services.

Treatment for co-occurring disorders, such as Roots through Recovery’s extended care program, offers clients effective ways to work through their trauma and find prosocial and physiologically beneficial ways of addressing the body’s response to trauma. Programs that address trauma from a cognitive, emotional and physiological standpoint allow individuals suffering from trauma and addiction to achieve sustainable life change and support the development of coping skills. Some of the evidence-based practices employed by treatment programs who embrace trauma-informed care are EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Prolonged Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, meditation and mindfulness, seeking safety and trauma-focused or mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy.

As we learned, unprocessed trauma can affect us dramatically at the core of our physiology and brain development, have a lasting effect on us psychologically, and can surface at any time. Addressing past trauma is a process, that should take place over time, at the right time and with a professional who is equipped to address trauma.

As primary therapist and EMDR specialist, Lauren Emmel, says, “It’s important to look at the different phases of trauma therapy. In the beginning phase of trauma therapy, if you’re working with recovery, is stabilizing, is creating a safe space, resourcing, going to meetings, finding a support group. The mind is all over the place, so if you start going into the trauma work, it’s going to disregulate the system. So first and foremost, it’s stabilizing. It’s finding a safe space that you feel that you can express yourself. And then the middle part is the actual trauma work.

Avoiding trauma, and turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms, only exacerbates trauma and can lead to addiction or other harmful behaviors. Seeking treatment and confronting trauma in a safe place is the best way to address trauma and reprocess it so that one may give traumatic experiences attention and acknowledgement, but not let them negatively impact your life.

To schedule an intake with an addiction and trauma specialist today, call Roots through Recovery at 562.473.0827 or email info@roots-recovery.com.

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